Friday, May 15, 2015

Today in the news!

It's Friday! Here are today's top news stories as decided by my cat, who just *graduated journalism school.

*emerged from inside a wine box

Today in Please Just Stop Talking You're Making It Worse, America's Favorite Dad Rapist Bill Cosby appeared on Good Morning America (which I'm assuming is now searching for a new booking agent) to promote his new campaign to improve upon education in Alabama.

Hello friend. I am in total control of this interview just as long as you ask me zero questions.

But things went south fast when anchor Linsey Davis asked Cosby what he might say to a child curious about the endless sexual assault allegations leveled against him. He responded:

"I am prepared to tell this young person the truth about life. I’m not sure that they will come like that. I think that many of them say, well, “You’re a hypocrite. You say one thing, you say the other.” My point is, okay, listen to me carefully. I’m telling you where the road is out. I’m telling you where, as you’re driving, you’re gonna go into water, and it looks like it might only be three inches deep, but you and your car are gonna go down. Now you wanna go here? Or you wanna be concerned about who’s giving you the message?"

Then, unsure his point had been made, he thoughtfully added, "Listen. Lets talk about the big white airplane here. It has four walls, a roof, a pool, a second bathroom. Okay? Listen to me carefully. You look out the windsheild. Fish are coming at you, but they have teeth, the teeth may actually be robots, do you understand? Do you want to go there? Or you wanna be concerned with who's giving you the message? Look. I could tell you where the road gives out, but you're in an airplane and all the roads are down here. Where are you? You're a hypocrite. Do you understand? My point is, piranhas are gunning for you and the plane's going down and you're nowhere near the highway. Niagara Falls is burning and where are you?  In the air underwater. Fudityblughtfibitit Jello Jello Jello Jello." And then he just crawled under a chair where he said only his real friends could see him, and asked if somebody could please be so kind to send for that delightful intern with the nice ass and tits who seemed kind of interested in show biz, he'd like to make her a drink. This story is ongoing.

In WTF Are You Even Talking About News, Fox has once again bravely protected the viewing public from deviant rampant sexuality --this time, from 19th Century Cubist and Known Pornographer, Pablo Picasso, whose Les Femmes d'Alger sold for $179 million at auction this week, making it the most expensive painting on Earth. Luckily, a local Fox News affiliate managed to get the real scoop on this "painting"--namely its controversial, pornographic and lewdly realistic depictions of deviant female sexuality:

Fox News protecting us from the rampant slutty whorishness of this painting

I just want to say, thank you Fox News for censoring this painting. For a minute there I was worried I might have to explain to my children why cubed women always flounce around with their three breasts flapping about. And what an uncomfortable conversation that would've been.

Finally, in Jobs and the Economy, for those of you looking to spread your professional wings and fly off in search of  "new challenges" I ask you to please direct all inquiries to Amtrak, who --despite some very minor recent struggles -- is totally hiring! So if you're looking for the PR challenge of a lifetime that  will be totally worth the shitty pay once all the various body parts and brain matter have been hosed off the tracks, Communications Lead at Amtrak is the job for you! Just like they say in the job description, your success is just a train ride away!

So that's all the humanity I can be bothered to pay attention to this week. Here's a video of Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus wearing animal-shaped Onsies doing a (pretty good) cover of Crowded House's Don't Dream It's Over, because really, can there be anything more apropos than that?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/15/miley-cyrus-ariana-grande-dont-dream-its-over-cover_n_7289226.html


Enjoy your weekend, guys. I know it's hard leaving this blog for a few days, but try not to jump off any buildings.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

The Hammer Weilding Maniac is Dead! That's The Good News!

The bad news? Literally everything else.

Did you know that the Universe is slowly expanding and that Earth will eventually destroy itself?

Seriously. Which shitty awful thing do we want to read about today? The horrible Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia or how we probably could have prevented the horrible Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia? The fire that killed over 70 workers at a slipper factory in the Philippines because bars over the fucking windows prevented workers from escaping, or the fact that probably this factory made your beloved Isotoners? Also, just FYI: US honeybees are disappearing, Australia would like to kill Johnny Depp's dogs and we now live in a world in which The Craft is remade without Fairuza Balk and The Simpsons exists without Harry Shearer. Also you kids get your damn ball off my lawn or I will keep it. You hear that, kids? KEEP YOUR DAMN JOYFUL RACKET ON YOUR OWN LAWN OR I WILL KEEP THIS BALL.


But hey, at least the Hammer Wielding Maniac of Union Square is dead.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Dance Moms: Proof that humanity may not deserve to live

So I'm a huge fan of Sia's Chandelier video, which features the adorably talented Maddie Ziegler from Dance Moms, a reality show about horrible middle-aged women and the mature nine year olds who raise them.

Maddie Ziegler in Chandelier. Also the only sane person on this entire show.
Maddie Ziegler in Sia's Chandelier. She is the only sane person on this entire show.

And while we're on the subject of insane musical works of art starring Maddie Ziegler, let's drop Elastic Heart--Sia's sister video to Chandelier--right here, because you must enjoy the two of them together like cheese paired with a fine wine:

ART!
ART!


So, Dance Moms. You guys, I tuned in expecting to see little Maddie Ziegler and instead what I saw was an Amtrak train wreckage of middle-aged horrors; some sort of bedazzled crazytrain of shrieking and hair-pulling and absolute madness sandwiched in between the occasional wide-camera shot of dancing children. Like what is even happening here?

If your kid beats my kid at this meaningless local dance competition I swear to God I will SLASH YOUR MOTHERFUCKING THROAT.

As I watched this televised black hole of catty stupid misery, I couldn't help but realize that this is all we as humans have now to represent us to our eventual alien overlords. Just imagine it, okay? It's the future and visitors from a neighboring galaxy have just touched down. They emerge from their glittering space capsules in search of information about the crux of humanity, and some asshole in nowhere Kansas hands them a video of the season four finale of fucking Dance Moms, and they immediately destroy us.

An eight year old covered in blood playing Carrie White at the prom (PS: This routine will win or I will SLASH YOUR MOTHERFUCKING THROAT.)

One of the final dances of this particular episode is called Citizenship. It is about a little girl's ability to triumph over adversity but also somehow about the glory of a little girl (AKA an adult coach's) desperation to get revenge against her enemies but also, truly, it's about America and oh who am I kidding, it's about absolutely nothing, you guys. The girls all wear American flags here because PATRIOTISM! and the instructor's adopted daughter from Bolivia runs in at the end with a literal American flag. She climbs a ladder and all the other girls salute her as a metaphor because ART and AMERICA and TRIUMPH! Or absolutely nothing. Later, the moms of these impossibly talented children all go fucking insane and instigate a physical fight with the other moms of other children on other teams because women be crazy bitches. ART! AMERICA! TRIUMPH! This is the lynchpin of Lifetime's "television for women" Tuesday night lineup, you guys. This and a show about lady midgets who dress sexy and love to party. Welcome to twenty-first century pop culture, fellow humans. This is what we're offering now to the universe.

I may never stop throwing up.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Today in the news!

Good afternoon! Here are today's top stories as decided by me because there's noone else in this living room.

Second Amendment Mascot George Zimmerman, the gunman who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin two years ago, was himself shot in a road rage incident in Lake Mary yesterday in what members of the local community are describing as both "a delightful turn of events" and "completely hilarious." Matthew Apperson, the shooter, insists that Zimmerman threatened him multiple times and that Apperson was merely defending himself, while Zimmerman's lawyer, Don West, insists Zimmerman himself was not the aggressor. Members of local law enforcement responded today to West's claims, stating, in between full-belly laughs, "Sure, there's one we've never heard before." Zimmerman is unfortunately expected to make a full recovery.

Moving on to Reasons To Not Ever Leave My House, a woman was randomly attacked in Union Square last night by a hammer wielding stranger because apparently my nightmares have begun to leak from my brain. WNBC reports that among the five billion people clogging Union Square like a toilet, not a single person noticed a woman being bludgeoned practically to death with a hammer, because sorry it's rush hour and I was looking at my phone, what were we talking about again? Oh, right. A hammer-wielding maniac. With so few leads and details to go on at this point, the NYPD has put out an APB for either an 8-bit Nintendo turtle or the first available black man they can find.

If you see either of these dangerous hammer-wielding turtles, please call the NYPD. They're right on top of it.
In a related story, I will be nowhere near Union Square.

Finally, in News That Will Definitely Fuck The Environment But Who Cares Because America! Capitalism! Freedumb!, the Obama Administration has granted conditional approval to Shell to begin exploratory drilling in the Arctic, which will allow the oil company to begin drilling in earnest this summer in the Chukchi Sea off the northwest coast of Alaska. Shell's drilling plan proposes up to six wells in an area about 70 miles offshore, a move scientists and really anyone with a working brain describes as "mindblowingly stupid," although proponents of the move like former Alaska Governor Sean Parnell and South Park's Satan and Saddam Hussein have all praised the strategy, insisting, "This is totally perfect for our plan to turn Earth into a horrific fiery molten lava hellscape."

"Congratulations. You're doing great work, America." - Satan

Shell, for its part, maintains that the work they're doing is top notch and totally safe, seriously so safe, like really super SUPER safe, so please don't worry you guys or pay any attention to any of Shell's previous environmental catastrophes because that would be unfair, like really, really unfair to Shell because they're 100% all about thoughtfulness and safety now:

"We have taken a thoughtful approach to carefully considering potential exploration in the Chukchi Sea, recognizing the significant environmental, social and ecological resources in the region and establishing high standards for the protection of this critical ecosystem," BOEM Director Abigail Ross Hopper said in a statement. She then added:

"We here at Shell are committed to getting you to your extinction not just on time, but early. This is our thoughtful approach. Whether it's making sure you never use biofuel or drilling in the arctic against the advice of literally every climate scientist on Earth, we're committed to fucking the environment right in its pretty little asshole. And in fact our commitment to excellence requires that we fuck not just the environment, but literally everyone on planet Earth, all of the species currently living. Here at Shell we believe this is part of our mission, and drilling in the Chukchi Sea will provide us with an unparalleled opportunity." She then smiled and finished, "So get ready to bend over, Antarctica." And then paused thoughtfully to add, "A little further than you're already bent."

So. Depressed yet? Aren't you glad you're alive? Isn't it beautiful, being part of this giant quilt of human interaction that we call life? Well, here's something to either cheer you up or make you feel way worse. It's Jimmy Fallon and U2 performing U2's greatest hits on the 42nd Street subway platform, which really only goes to prove that regardless of who you are -- whether U2 or a hammer wielding maniac-- nobody gives a shit about you during rush hour in New York. Enjoy! Happy Tuesday!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aluYo-FSqiw

Monday, May 11, 2015

Happy Mothers Day, Mom

Here's Mommie and I at my fifth birthday party: 


Oh, Mommie.
Even though Mommie made me give away all the presents but one, I feel like I learned an important lesson about selflessness and how to clean up after a belligerent drunk without dirtying my pretty dress. Later on we would play the wire-hanger game. Classic Mommie.

This is us a few years later, doing the Burlesque circuit:

Sing out!
Sure Mother and I fight sometimes over why I have to be the ass of the cow costume or why we're sleeping in the loft over a goddamn Chinese food restaurant again, but mother's always got big ideas and she always includes me in (most of) them. Sometimes we do big musical numbers together and sometimes I cry alone at night while contemplating our own murder/suicide. It's a real rollercoaster! Mother and I have a great relationship.

And here we are now, thirty-five years later:

The cats are always getting away, but at least we're together.
Here we are at home. Even though we've allowed the big beautiful house to fall into disrepair, my relationship with my mother is stronger than ever. We have lots of friends (cats) and lots of enemies (cats) but Mother darling and I are best friends.  We live in a pile of our own garbage inside a crumbling house of sadness and sometimes we listen to the radio as mother berates me for being an enormous disappointment. Our relationship is the strongest its ever been.

For anyone who's ever had a complicated relationship with their mother, this one's for you. And for my own mother, who is a weirdo lunatic nutcase and helped make me the weirdo lunatic nutcase I am today, thank you. Our relationship isn't some Hallmark card ideal, but imperfect and bizarre and real. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks, Mom.

Friday, May 8, 2015

I Am Not Liz Lemon and Neither Are You: A Rant For Single Ladies

So I'm coming up on t-minus 20 days until my 1st wedding anniversary and sometimes I still can't believe that someone actually accepted this job.

First off, I'm a lot of work. I require maintenance. Like, MAINTENANCE. Also it's long hours, terrible pay (technically no pay), a ton of manual labor and dangerous heavy lifting (well it's not my fault I can't reach any of the cabinets), and a guaranteed slew of uber-uncomfortable, terribly awkward  situations in which definitely you will want to kill yourself but unfortunately you won't be able to. Which I suppose makes me that Craigslist ad people share on Facebook with the caption: OMG check out this hot mess insanity. Also, I was frankly the kind of single girl who had been single for so long that her singledom had begun growing mollusks and coral and moss, like some sort of Yacht that sank long ago to the bottom of the ocean. At one point I think I agreed to marry my Chinese food deliveryman because at least he smiled when he brought me my wonton soup, and that was better than nothing. This was where my bar was set. Like I was Liz Lemon on the couch in a Snuggie happily munching on her night cheese.

This is how I see myself

Because I was such a mess (and by mess I mean a woman who has told herself she is a mess, because we women are raised to be queens of self-recrimination) I ended up dating a bunch of doucherags who, in retrospect, only validated this mythology I had written that I was a terrible person. I'm not sure if my intent there was to actually prove to myself that I was a terrible person by dating terrible people, but it felt like I needed to win at Fucking Myself Over. Like I was loading up the bases to hit my own ass out of the park so that I could collect my Congratulations You've Sold Yourself Short trophy, and my Yes You Were Right You ARE A Fat Ugly Loser medal, and be on my way in my sad old maid's clothes to knit sweaters for my three hundred heirloom dolls.

Except usually it was the barista at Starbucks.

At some point, my net worth became so entangled in my inability to date that I WAS a mess. And like plenty of other women I just lost all sense of myself. What I didn't realize, of course, was that I was looking at myself and everything all wrong.


Just as soon as I realize I am not actually horrible or disgusting.

The man who would later become my husband asked me out four times and I turned him down all four times, all the while chasing other men who had zero interest in me. That's like constantly turning down delicious chocolate cake to stuff empty candy wrappers in your mouth, sorry I can't help myself with the food analogies. But to give you an example, the last guy I chased before I dated my husband actually hit on my sister while I was in the hospital. Literally, a nurse was shoving a foley tube up my vagina and my sister turns to me and says, "You know your boyfriend just texted me to ask if I would jump on his dick." True story. Also TMI. Moving on.

Each time my husband asked me out I remembering thinking to myself, "What the hell does he want from me? Why is HE coming after ME?" like I was fucking Orphan Black or Agent Scully and any man who showed any interest in me could only be a contract killer or a degenerate who wanted to skin me and wear my breasts as a hat.

What do you want and why are you calling me?  I'm assuming you saw my TV ad?

As a woman I was taught long ago that my personality, such as it was (weird, tom-boyish, sarcastic, blunt) was wrong. My body, such as it was (short, stout, top-heavy) was wrong. It would not land me anyone. No, if I truly wanted a man I would have to give him a reason to want me back; I would literally have to justify my worth to him. I would have to twist myself into an emotional and aesthetic pretzel, I would have to just stop focusing on who I was and what I wanted and focus instead on what a man might want from me. Which is just as much of a horseshit strategy as this:

You're never going to get her, Pepe. This is futile, surely you realize this by now.
 The truth is you are fucking great exactly the way you are. And I get that you've probably seen that written on cat posters, but it's true. You are a weird, beautiful, imperfect person and that's great. Basically what I'm saying it's time to re-write your own false mythology. Because you know what my husband was actually looking for? He was looking for ME. Not the me who was convinced she only deserved assholes but the me who thought she was great.  And I feel like as women we tend to just assume we're not all that great. We downplay all of our strengths and pretend we're losers. Like we walk around literally telling ourselves we're awful people for no reason at all.  And then, what's worse? We actually start to believe our own lies.

In the end I found my husband only after I found myself.  And sure that sounds cheesy but the truth is in the cheese, my friends (sorry, more food metaphors.) Because, amazingly, it turns out that when you actually feel you are worth it you tend to attract people who believe you are worth it. I know that sounds like something Danny Tanner  once told DJ on Full House to a bunch of AWWWs, but just go with me here. Or else think of the fabulicious diva RuPaul: "If you can't love yourself how the hell you gonna love somebody else?"

Because I am great.

In any case, my point is that I was more in control of my own destiny than I thought, which means that so are you and so is everyone. Which means you won't be single forever if you don't want to be. Even if you're sitting there on the couch in your pjs reading this and eating your night cheese and wondering whether this is all there is. I promise you, there's more out there.

Just start doing terrific things for yourself and something else terrific will happen, I guarantee it. You just need to say YES to it regardless of whether that scares you. It only took me thirty years of telling myself NO and YOU'RE AWFUL and SHUT UP FATSO to figure that out -- that actually, I am pretty great. And now, while I still require a lot of work and maintenance and I still can't believe there's another human on this Earth who is super into that, I no longer question my worth. And that's huge. Happy 1st Anniversary, me!

And to my husband, if you're reading this, I love you. Thank you for loving me just as I am. Also, bring home cat food, we're out.

And now if you'll excuse me...


Thursday, May 7, 2015

Things That Are Brilliant: 12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer

I think I may just change the name of this blog to Marry Me Amy Schumer And Birth All My Comedy Babies, for this week's Inside Amy Schumer offering is truly next level. Really, it's like there's the normal ground-level bar where most comedy is set, and this sketch (below) just rockets clear over that lowly bar and sets a whole new bar in fucking outer space. And for those of you wondering whether it's even possible for a comedy sketch to be not just good, not just funny, but artistic, truly a work of art-- the answer is yes.  And perhaps that's what's so exciting and refreshing about Amy Schumer; her sketches are NOT the same old packaged sophomoric bullshit geared towards a universe in which only straight white males live. Her sketches have resonance and weight.

"See that face? That is a butter face, damn it!"

FYI: the sketch below is 20 minutes long, takes up the entirety of Amy Schumer's run time, and is a pitch perfect play on the classic black and white movie (which is based on the play) 12 Angry Men. And I promise you, it is worth every second of your time.

Here, instead of the defendant being tried for murder, Amy Schumer is tried for the egregious crime of not being attractive enough for her own prime time TV show. The fate of Inside Amy Schumer then is left to a jury of old, paunchy, unattractive men who must decide whether Amy gives them enough "reasonable chub" to allow her to stay on the air. (Hilariously, the question of whether or not Schumer is funny is dismissed immediately. She's a woman so of course she's not funny. The question is would you want to fuck her? Would you want to mash your face between her breasts and make helicopter noises? Would you want to jack-off on the couch while picturing her face?) Once again, Schumer takes an issue most women deal with on a daily basis and turns it into next-level comedy; Why is it OK for men to put women on trial when male attractiveness is never ever an issue?

Guys, this is a tour de force. It's rare that I get the chance to say I feel like I've seen something new but truly, I feel like I've seen something new. Give this one a watch and then watch all of her other sketches because she's a genius and I wish I had written all of them.

http://www.cc.com/full-episodes/d6vl24/inside-amy-schumer-12-angry-men-inside-amy-schumer-season-3-ep-303

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Today in the News!

Good afternoon! Today in REAL news (that's REAL news - AKA news that hasn't been intercepted by our shadow government, the mainstream media coven, the Illuminati, our inevitable alien overlords and/or our Muslim Kenyan Illegal Socialist Warlock president, Barack Voldemort Obama) Texas has saved us again! That's right, The Sovereign Six-Shooter Cowboy Yee Haw Nation State of Texas has once again uncovered a sinister plot against its own citizens -- this time in the form of a "military exercise" (AKA death panel) called Operation Jade Helm (AKA Operation Murder All Texans But Make It Look Like An Accident.) Jade Helm, of course, is the brainchild of the U.S. Military under the control of King Barack Saddam Hussein Adolf Hitler Benghazi, but if you don't believe me (or would like to know more,) please just follow me into this tiny windowless backroom behind a secret wall so I can ensure our chat is unencumbered by CIA listening devices.

This guy FOR SURE knows what he's talking about. When are you going to start listening, America??!
My very reliable source tells me that Texas is under attack

The hullabaloo started on Monday afternoon, when Lt. Col. Mike Listoria hosted a press conference in Austin to brief the public on some "joint Navy Seal/Green Beret training exercises taking place on a military base in Texas, called Operation Jade Helm." (REAL AMERICANS KNOW THAT'S NOT WHAT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING SOCIALISM BENGHAZI.)  And while it's true that Texas has enough military bases to casually attack China, and that the military has conducted regular training on these bases ever since the battle of San Jacinto, the tea-partying public took enormous issue with Operation Jade Helm because--and here is where the Illuminati doesn't want you to make the connection-- six Walmarts (SIX WHOLE WALMARTS!) all closed at the same time prior to the press conference, supposedly "for renovations" (AKA to be remodeled as Terrorist Hubs ISIS SHARIA LAW DEATH CAMPS NUCLEAR WINTER BENGHAZI.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hyRYrszVtQ
Terrorism at low prices! This video will tell you all you need to know about our future Muslim overlords' spacious Walmart headquarters

And don't even get me started on the barrage of international political prisoners that our warlock vampire smoke monster president plans to shuttle in to West Texas and settle into FEMA deaths camps until all of Texas is basically just a Middle-Eastern Terrorist stronghold, and the Kardashians are covered in head to toe burtkas (how will we be able to slut-shame the circumference of Kim K's booty?! HOW??!) and we're all just praising Allah and blowing ourselves up in effigy instead of getting fat and watching cat memes-- shit is someone listening in on this? Are you wearing a wire? WHO ARE YOU AND WHO DO YOU WORK FOR??!!

Actual text from a letter sent by an anonymous Texas Ranger to a conservative talk show. Oh who the fuck am I kidding? Everyone knows it was this dude:
Actual text from a letter sent to a conservative talk show by an anonymous Texas Ranger. Oh who the fuck am I kidding? It was this dude:
Chuck Norris will protect us.

Which was why rookie Republican Governor Greg Abbott, in an understandable effort to keep his citizens safe from the inevitable Alas Babylon Dystopia about to be imposed upon them, announced he was ordering the Texas National Guard to keep watch over the United States Military during Operation Jade Helm. Because at the end of the day, Texas understands better than anyone else the glory of ill-conceived unwinnable battles.

So, to recap, Texas is the new stronghold for ISIS. Prison camps will be erected by FEMA. Weapons will be provided by Walmart.  (Frankly not such a stretch for Walmart) This information is 100% accurate. THANKS OBAMA.

Please see below for the full(er) report from Jon Stewart and then please excuse me,  I'd like to head out to my spaceship now so I can JUST LEAVE THE EARTH.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/c54ewk/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot---fear-and-absent-danger

Happy Wednesday, friends!

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

But Seriously, I Have A Great Relationship With My Landlord.

You guys, I think it's time to pull up stakes and just go live someplace else, like maybe Seattle or London or the moon or some far-off outer galaxy (what's the rent like in space? Better than NY? Worse than SF?) because I just cannot anymore with these landlords. Seriously? I cannot. I might as well have a disabled monkey or a really stupid chair watching over my apartment. (Not just any chair, mind you, but a stupid chair. Like a chair with two legs or a chair that thinks its a table.)

Anyway. Here's what happened.

"Picture it: my apartment, three days ago."
It's two days after my bathroom ceiling has been "fixed" ("fixed" being the loose term we'll use for something that is no longer actively dangerous) and my husband and I are sitting around being serious grownups doing serious important grownup things (playing the new Mortal Kombat, goading the dog into attacking the cat so the cat will bite the dog, etc) when the Landlord calls.

"Sorry to bother you," says the landlord, "But I need a copy of the rent."

I ask, "Why? Is something wrong?"

And my husband, who's clearly eavesdropping but incredibly busy with the serious business of figuring out how to achieve a fatality, asks, "Is that the landlord?"

I nod.

"Nothing's wrong," says the landlord. "I just need a copy of your rental contract. I'm asking all the tenants to include a copy of their agreement with this month's check."

So at this point I'm still kind of worried. The rent in my neighborhood has, for the past few years, begun to hover around the Fuck-All Insanity mark. Is he planning on raising my rent? And what happens if I don't have a copy of said rent? How the fuck much will he raise it then?

"Okay," I say, "But might I ask why you need a copy of the rental agreement?"

Which is when the landlord and I, officially, launch ourselves into the Abbott and Costello Long-Lost Slumlord Variety Hour.

"I'm asking all tenants," says the landlord unhelpfully.

"A copy of the rent?" asks my husband, still knee-deep in Mortal Kombat. "Why doesn't the landlord already have a copy of the rent?"

"Aren't you the landlord?" I say. "Shouldn't you have a copy of the rent?"

"Are you saying you don't have a copy of the rent?" The Landlord's tone sounds positively scandalized, which (I'll give him credit for) is pretty damn ballsy. "How do you not have a copy of the rent?"

"How do I not have a copy of the rent? How do YOU not have a copy of the rent?"

"You should really keep copies," says the landlord.

"Didn't you CREATE the copies?" I point out.

"Yes," he says, "But I lost my blue folder."

"What does that even mean?" At this point I'm livid. "What the hell happens if I lose MY blue folder?"

"I don't follow."

You... don't follow.

So, to recap: my landlord is missing important paperwork for (not just me, but) literally everyone in my entire building because my landlord has but one --ONE!--blue folder that apparently IS NOT secret code for "computer" where he keeps all his important documents. Next up he'll ask me to calculate next year's rent for him because he can't find his abacus.

So I say, "What if I can't find my copy?"

"What do you mean what if you can't find your copy? How do you not have a copy of the rent?"

"How do YOU not have a copy of the rent?"

"Glad to see you're getting somewhere," says my husband.

And here, guys, is the reason why I desperately need to move, or buy a house, or just shoot myself out into fucking outer space or something. Because then it just gets weirder and he says, "You're welcome, by the way. For the bathroom. You didn't call me or anything to say how much you liked it."

Really?  REALLY?

At this point I'm unsure why we're even still talking and frankly I'm angry and I have a lot of agitating my animals to get done, so I say, "Thank you?"

"It was a lot of work," says the landlord. "We worked really hard on your bathroom."

"Okay."

"We were there for eight hours."

We?

My landlord wasn't even there when the ceiling was patched.
For the record, my Landlord opened the bathroom door, took one look at our moldy, bulbous ceiling and then promptly exited, leaving us in the hands of "his very capable, very professional, very trusted team." (FYI: Team = One Dude With A Fake Name Who Used To Live In Our Basement But Is Now Fixing Our Bathrooms Apparently, and nobody else.) That said, we did in fact thank Mr. Fake Name Dude (who also painted our bathroom tiles the same color as the wall, by the way) although I suppose in hindsight I could have reached out to my overly sensitive landlord --perhaps via flowers or singing telegram or personal string quartet, because if nothing else, my landlord works very, very hard at avoiding ever having to work very, very hard.

"What's he saying?" asks my husband, who at this point has mastered the art of the fatality because I've been on the phone an abominable amount of time for no reason at all. I roll my eyes.

"Thank you for fixing my broken bathroom," I say loudly, "Thank you so much for finally fixing it, we very much appreciate our new working bathroom." (which is part of your job, I should have yelled, which you avoided doing for over a year, but hold on, let me buy you a bouquet of flowers and a six foot tall fucking greeting card and a ticker tape parade because I'm so crazy grateful my ceiling did not cave in.)



Finally, mercifully, the conversation ends and my husband and I are left stupefied on the couch. "Give him a copy of the agreement from 2010," he suggests. "We'll pay less rent."

Except the truth is we'll pay MORE! MORE RENT FOREVER! hahaha HILARIOUS!

Welcome to Queens, everyone - Slumlord/High Rent Capital of the United States. Remind me to check Zillow for better deals in outer space.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Not That I Care What You Do With Your Life Or Anything, But Definitely Watch Inside Amy Schumer.

Who could have imagined that the next female sketch comedy visionary would come NOT from the hallowed ground of SNL, but from the middle of the pack of NBC's almost, kind of, not-quite watchable cringe-fest, Last Comic Standing? You know, that show your sixty-one year old Mother  brings up every single time she calls because she's convinced that not only do you fervently watch it, since you've studied comedy and live in New York, clearly you must also know some of the comics?

"His name is John Landon, honey. He was very charming, he talked a lot about masturbation."

"No, Mom."

"What about that Tucker fellow? The fat Asian man who wanted to fuck his computer game?"

"No. Mom, please stop."

Anyhoozils, Amy Schumer placed fourth on season five,  just oh-so-short-of-the-finale, which surely would have been disappointing... had she not dusted herself right off and kept on going, as befits the working mantra of the creative professional: wipe off the blood (bury the body) and keep on going.

Inappropriate and proud of it

So who could have imagined that just a few short years later, one of Reality TV's lesser-known cast-offs would be a viral comedy sensation, with material to rival SNL and (hopefully) long outlive anything on NBC's Last Comic Standing? Perhaps it was that her rise to the top was simply fated -- perhaps Amy Schumer is the a modern day Vagina Empowerment Prophet we needed.

If the sketches feel new, like new-car-smell-new, that's because the perspective certainly is. Inside Amy Schumer, ever the edgy underdog, often tackles the uncomfortable scraps left behind by hamstrung mainstream powerhouses like (the often disappointing) SNL; subjects like abortion and rape and body-shaming and birth control and ageism.  Getting the actual funny out of any topic, hot-button or not, is hard (just ask the often-flat-footed SNL). But here Amy Schumer manages to create beautifully rendered comedy while at the same time drawing attention to the media's unfair treatment of women in Hollywood, and how that treatment is often a mirror for the larger, more disturbing cultural sentiment. (Also, it's just funny shit, you guys. Seriously? This is some tight, well-done, unapologetic, funny shit.)

So come for the funny, stay for the political outrage; it's a two-fer deal!

All that said, I now present, for your viewing pleasure, two delicious Amy Schumer delights - sure to be instant classics. Watch, share, trade with your friends, collect your favorites. Happy Monday!

http://aisbell.tumblr.com/post/117737104612/amy-schumer-birth-control-sketch
"Be sure to ask your doctor if birth control is right for you."


Here is the One Direction Parody you didn't realize you were so desperately waiting for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyeTJVU4wVo
"Just take off your makeup, you're pefect when you wake up..."
Amy Schumer: still confidently doing the lord's work.